Related papers: Gold alignment & internal dissipation
We discuss the dynamics of dust grains subjected to uncompensated torques arising from H_2 formation. In particular, we discuss grain dynamics when a grain spins down and goes through a ``crossover''. As first pointed out by Spitzer &…
Grain alignment theory suggests that grains should be aligned in circumstellar regions and the observational data available supports this conclusion. We discuss the alignment of grains via (1) magnetic relaxation, (2) mechanical processes,…
While the problem of grain alignment was posed more than 60 years ago the quantitative model of grain alignment that can account for the observed polarization arising from aligned grains has been formulated only recently. The quantitative…
Polarization arising from aligned dust grains presents a unique opportunity to study magnetic fields in the diffuse interstellar medium and molecular clouds. Polarization from circumstellar regions, accretion disks and comet atmospheres can…
The polarisation of light induced by aligned interstellar dust serves as a significant tool in investigating cosmic magnetic fields, dust properties, and poses a challenge in characterising the polarisation of the cosmic microwave…
Thermal dust continuum polarimetry is a powerful indirect probe of magnetic field geometry in dense molecular clouds while at the same time providing information on the alignment of dust grains with the magnetic field. The leading theory of…
Recent (sub)millimeter polarization observations of protoplanetary disks reveal toroidally aligned, effectively prolate dust grains large enough (at least ~100 $\mu$m) to efficiently scatter millimeter light. The alignment mechanism for…
Polarimetry is one of the most informative techniques of studying magnetic fields in molecular clouds. How reliable the interpretation of the polarization maps in terms of magnetic fields is the issue that the grain alignment theory…
This paper gives a short summary of a mechanism of the enhanced paramagnetic relaxation that acts on rapidly rotating interstellar grains. We show that the Barnett magnetization that arises from grain rotation ensures that paramagnetic…
A quantitative analysis of grain alignment in the filamentary dark cloud L1755 in Ophiuchus is presented. We show, that the observed decrease of the polarization to extinction ratio for the inner parts of this quiescent dark cloud can be…
Alignment of dust grains in astrophysical environments results in the polarization of starlight as well as the polarization of radiation emitted by dust. We demonstrate the advances in grain alignment theory allow the use of linear and…
We generalize the magnetically enhanced radiative torque (MRAT) alignment theory for general astrophysical environments described by a dimensionless parameter $U/(n_{1}T_{2})$ with $U$ local radiation strength, $n_{1}=n_{\rm H}/(10{\rm…
Magnetic fields ($\textbf{B}$) are an important factor that controls the star formation process. The leading method to observe $\textbf{B}$ is using polarized thermal emission from dust grains aligned with $\textbf{B}$. However, in dense…
The alignment of interstellar dust grains is described by the joint distribution function for certain ``internal'' and ``external'' variables, where the former describe the orientation of a grain's axes with respect to its angular momentum,…
Polarization of optical starlight and far-infrared thermal dust emission due to alignment of interstellar grains offers a powerful window to study magnetic fields in the various astrophysical environments, from the diffuse interstellar…
Grain alignment is a notoriously difficult problem, that is extremely rich in underlying physics. The long history of attempts theoretical handling of the problem resulted in rather sceptical approach to the theory on the part of some…
Grain alignment by radiative torques (RATs) has been extensively studied for various environment conditions, including interstellar medium, dense molecular clouds, and accretion disks, thanks to significant progress in observational,…
Barnett relaxation, first described by Purcell in 1979, appears to play a major role in the alignment of grains with the interstellar magnetic field. In 1999, Lazarian and Draine proposed that Barnett relaxation and its relative, nuclear…
Radiative Torques (RATs) or Mechanical Torques (METs) acting on irregular grains can induce the alignment of dust grains in respect to the alignment axis (AA), which can be either the direction of the magnetic field, or the direction of the…
Dust polarization induced by aligned grains is widely used to study magnetic fields in various environments, including star-forming regions. However, the question of to what optical depth grain alignment still exists in a dense molecular…